Rainbow Cupcake Connection

Rainbow cupcakes are old news in the baking blog world, but I'd never partaken. A friend's birthday was the perfect occasion to test out these technocolour treats. While they look fancy and colourful, in fact it is just a plain vanilla cupcake recipe with food colouring. It's a little finicky if you are set on getting a perfect ROYGBIV rainbow in layers, but on the second round I was pretty haphazard, which resulted and equally delicious and more psychadelic cupcakes (I made a double recipe, but really only got 18, not 24-it's a pain to run out of batter halfway through a rainbow. I wanted a light coloured frosting to show off the vibrant cakes, so I went with a cream cheese vanilla bean frosting.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Vanilla Bean Icing (Cook's Illustrated-to double, just double everything except use 3 whole eggs and 2 yolks)

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup / 8 tbsp / 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 egg + 2 yolks
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• food colouring

1. Heat oven to 350˚. Line muffin tin with paper or foil cups.
2. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add butter, sour cream, egg and yolks and vanilla and beat until smooth and shiny.
3. Separate batter into as many bowls as colours you plan on using (I did 5). Add in food colouring and mix until desired effect is achieved.
4. Divide batter between the cups as you like (useful tools include spatulas, a laddle, possibly a baster). Bake 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool cupcakes on a wire rack before icing.

• 1 pkg cream cheese
• 5 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• 1 tbsp sour cream
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• seeds scraped from 2 vanilla beans
• 1 1/2 cup confectioners sugar.

1. Mix and ice cupcakes-you can get fancy with piping or just spread it on, depending on time and aesthetics.